Why Gratitude will make you a better writer

How Gratitude affects your writing

‘In Norfolk, Virginia a little girl sat amidst a swirl of chaos at her mother’s funeral’ — I didn’t write this statement — Philip Long did — And… it’s beautifully sad! I stumbled upon the wordplay doing what writers who aren’t writing do. I was digging for inspiration wherever it could be found.

My mind raced to how lucky writers are. They sit all day long, eat acres of words, bundle up phrases, spin sentences, and hope readers will be interested. They know they aren’t good enough, experienced enough, or educated enough. Yet they want to change the world with their words.

In the meantime, the world waits, watching. It watches as writers cook in their self-induced pressure cookers. Fumbling, tumbling, and praying, hoping to write a knee-jerking piece.

Occasionally a masterpiece flies out of the writers’ steam chamber.

It’s instantly devoured. An excellence starved multitude gobbles it up. It becomes the buzzword for students, politicians, and gangsters.

Nobody else in the world welds this immense power. That is why if you are a writer who wakes up every morning to write — to string words along, cut them, string them up, and cut. If you labor at the wheel writing — Grind and spin — fat sentences that stand no chance. If you slash them lean, and in trepidation send them out — you have every reason to be filled with gratitude.

Gratitude will make you a better writer. A teacher asked her grade, three schoolchildren, to list seven wonders of the world. When she collected the responses, most of the pupils had listed — The great wall of China, The Empire state building, The grand canyon, the colosseum in Rome, Egypt’s great pyramids, Empire state building, and the great wildebeest migration in East Africa.

A little girl at the back listed something different — She wrote, ‘the greatest wonders in the world are: To love, to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to laugh, and to feel.

Exceptional writers experience their world. They create a fantasy, transport readers to this fairyland. They let them see, feel, hear, touch, taste, love, and laugh — They live a grateful life.

That’s when it hit me. Gratitude is a force, powerful enough to change the world.

The writer in me piqued I went searching — I needed to know all there was to know about gratitude. The findings were not phenomenal, they were sensational!

Gratitude will improve your sex life! — If you don’t believe me here are the facts -

A study by Dr, Robert Emmons, a leading researcher on Gratitude found — Expressing deep heartfelt and sincere appreciation for the people in our lives creates loving bonds, builds trust, and draws people close to each other. He found that thanking people for doing nice things for you encourages them to keep acting benevolently — My conclusion — Thanking your partner will make them love you more!

On an academically serious note -

Research by prominent scholars place gratitude as the secret fuel that propels successful people to excellence — These findings set my creative juices flowing. — I dug for more.

This is what I found:

Gratitude is a discipline. It was studied as far back as the 1930s. Social scientists Baumgarten-Tramer in 1938, Bergler in 1945, Gouldner in 1960; Heider in 1958, Schwartz in 1967, and Simmel in 1950 have written copious findings — It will take one year just to read them — joke!

Quite Recently Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Martin Seligman have been at the forefront of breaking the gratitude barrier — They have labored to reveal the secrets of living a grateful life.

A seven-minute read can barely scratch the surface of Gratitude. To help you digest this juicy subject, — I have condensed the most important benefits of gratitude for writers who want to excel.

Six benefits of gratitude for writers:

1. Every word you write becomes pleasurable when you are grateful.- People who regularly feel grateful create positive emotions and have a positive impact on their wellness. Gratitude allows us to participate fully in the business of living. This participation magnifies the pleasure we derive from life.
2. Writers are sensitive to criticism, gratitude helps you to keep churning out words. According to Dr. Emmons, Gratitude blocks negative and toxic emotions like regret, resentment, jealousy, envy. These negative emotions steal your happiness and take the joy out of life -
3. You will write about your darkest moments without suffering a nervous breakdown. — Grateful people are more resilient and have a positive perspective on life. They interpret negative events positively and plod on during dark moments of their life. Faced with a traumatic event grateful people are shielded by gratitude against post-traumatic stress and unnecessary anxiety.
4. Gratitude will make you appreciate the medium community more — Grateful people have a higher sense of self-worth. They acknowledge the protection of God. They appreciate everybody in their lives and take note of their network of friends. They are happier, less stressed, less depressed, excited, and roaring to go.
5. A grouchy writer is no fun being around — Positive emotions have other benefits; they boost our ability to learn from mistakes and help us to make the right decisions. Grateful feelings lead to a happy countenance, which leads to a calm demeanor, and a joyful outlook towards life -
6. One grateful writer will enthuse a whole community of writers — Expressing gratitude has a domino effect. When we express gratitude towards an act of kindness to someone, they are more likely to perform a similar act of kindness to another person.

Gratitude is a positive emotion.

Gratitude is an emotion — Being grateful for benefits awakens deep feelings of appreciation in our consciousness.

Gratitude will push you to express your greatest creativity. Barbara Fredrickson’s theory of positive emotions dabbed “broaden and build” observes that positive emotions broaden a person’s thought-action and builds lasting psychological, cognitive, physical, and social abilities.

They build psychological and social resources on which you can lean on in tough times. They help a person to see themselves as winners, overcomers, or successful.

Gratitude helps broaden a persons’ perspective and empowers them to be zealous in what they do. The increase of these positive emotions in turn, increases their productivity.

Gratitude’s magnetism to your writing

People experience and express gratitude differently. Some dwell in the past, they retrieve positive memories and are thankful for the good things that happened to them.

Others express gratitude in the present, they acknowledge good fortune in their life. Still, others are optimistic, they look to the future and live an expectant life, they expect good things to happen to them.

Experiencing gratitude motivates recipients to behave prosocially. People who express gratitude regularly have the intent of benefiting others. Gratitude also develops reciprocity; this reciprocity is motivated by indebtedness to the benefactor or giver.

Grateful writers on medium reach out more, follow more people, clap more, and encourage others more.

Gratitude awakens the giant within

The concept of self-determination understands that people are naturally curious and seek to have choices in their daily activities. They are motivated to perform better because they derive pleasure in the task.

Self-determination theory developed by Deci and Ryan states that — “individuals have a fundamental need to have control of the work that they do to derive satisfaction.”

What this means is that people have a desire to have self-determination — they want to meet the following important psychological needs in their lives:

1. Relatedness — The need to relate — People want to connect, belong, or relate to others. Human beings are social and they have an inherent desire to interact with others — That’s why you enjoy being part of the Medium family.

2. Autonomy — The need to be free — People have a need to feel that they are masters of their own destiny. People are empowered when they feel a sense of choice and endorsement in a given task — That is the reason you enjoy claps and celebrate new followers.

Autonomous individuals can choose to work alone or can rely on others yet still gain a sense of intrinsic motivation from engaging in tasks

3. Competence — The need to achieve — Competence: Achievements, knowledge, and skills. — people have a need to build their competence and develop mastery over tasks they perform. They want to feel a sense of achievement — That’s the reason you feel a sense of fulfillment every time you click the Publish button.

Gratitude restores your vitality

Gratitude will help you sleep better. People who practice gratitude before bedtime, deal with anxieties, and are more relaxed when they hit the sack.

Recent studies show that people who demonstrate gratitude are not only happier but are also healthier. Gratitude inspires and generates holistic health, that covers the spiritual, psychological, and cultural aspects of life.

Gratitude journaling before bedtime reduces worry and pessimism. It helps people to relax and fall asleep faster than they would ordinarily do. Most people who practice gratitude before bedtime enjoy longer and more refreshing sleep.

Directing our focus on positive reasons that promote gratitude blocks out negative thoughts and perceptions like narcissistic feelings of selfishness and perceived victim mentality — It opens wide the door of limitless opportunities.

Want to tap into Gratitude Benefits? Write.

Write with a grateful heart. George Herbert the Welsh-born priest of the Church of England wrote;

“Thou that has given so much to me, give one thing more–a grateful heart; Not thankful when it pleases me as if thy blessings had spare days; But such a heart, whose pulse may be Thy praise.”

The act of writing, keeping a record of everyday blessings, translates our thoughts into words. Writing is more powerful than thinking. It helps organize thoughts, facilitates integration, and helps us to accept every situation in its unique context.

• Keep A gratitude journal
• Write thank you comments to authors who have inspired you.
• Write gratitude emails to authors whose works have shaped your writing.
• Keep a record of all your blessings — your first post, first earnings, first milestone, first curation first publication…. The list goes on…

Have you been inspired to live a more grateful life? Go kill it — make the world a better place. Write with a heart full of gratitude. Inspire others one word at a time and watch your world change.